BERLIN—Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday immigrants who settle in Germany are German even if they have foreign-sounding names, making a subtle dig at a widespread habit among white Germans of asking Turks born on German soil where they come from. “Integration cannot be a seven-generation endeavor that never ends just because one isn’t called Klaus or Erika,” Merkel said with a wry smile during a ceremony to mark 60 years since Germany signed a treaty with Turkey to bring in hundreds of thousands of Turkish men to fill labor shortages in the 1960s. “The question is how long does a person who doesn’t have a clearly German name have to integrate themselves before they are integrated? I think everyone should have a chance, at the latest when they have taken up German citizenship, to be seen as part of this land, and the name must play no role,” she …
You Can Be German Even If Your Name Is Not ‘Klaus’ or ‘Erika’: Merkel
August 31, 2021
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